4th of July

I feel like I just posted about going up to Island Park. Sorry, I know its probably not super exciting to read about again, but here's my post about going back for the 4th of July. I love Island Park for the 4th of July. Its so much fun, its warm, and there's lots to do. Island Park is a popular vacation destination for Utahns and most people you meet up there are from UT. And I think everyone in the state of Utah goes to Island Park for this particular weekend. Church on Sunday is so crowded. It takes about 30 minutes to pass the sacrament, and theres 2 chapels side by side both of which are filled to the brim, and people are scattered around in classrooms as well to listen over a broadcast system. Mike and I "reserved" the cabin for this weekend weeks ahead of time, thinking it would just be our little family all alone up there because we didn't know if anyone would be able to join us (friends, family, anyone). We were excited when most of Mike's family decided to join us! (We missed Derek, and Kyle & Tyne who were days away from having their first baby). 

We started off the weekend with the Bills Island 4th of July parade.

People decorate their 4-wheelers with patriotic decorations and throw candy to the little kids. Or if you have a boat.. that works too. Emmett and Pixton got tons of candy.

After the parade we loaded up the kayak, rented a canoe and boat, and floated the river. Its a 5 mile lazy-river float. It takes about 3 hours to float the whole way down. Its so beautiful and relaxing.

I think the lazy-river was making Emmett particularly lazy....or tired in this case. I was wishing I was small enough to do that!

"Cheesy" smiles:

Emmett's first sparkler experience:

The boys loved playing with the rockband drumset. Being a little bit older than Pixton, we had to keep reminding Emmett he had to share the drumsticks with him. So usually they each got 1 drumstick, and in this case, shared the chair too:

Love my sweet little Claire. She's finally big enough to sit up in the umbrella stroller. We got tons of mosquito bites on this walk. I hate putting stuff like bug repellant on my babies, so I just sprayed a blanket with bug spray and laid it on her. Miraculously it worked, I think she was the only one that walked away without a bug bite.

We also played some fun games, ate some amazingly good food and watched a spectacular fireworks show.

Flooded With a Mess

On Sunday Saratoga Springs got a huge rainstorm. It was coming down in SHEETS, if you know what I mean. The "sheet-rain" lasted a good 20-30 minutes and then it "regular" rained about another 2 hours after that.

After the sheet-rain Mike was outside on the porch and went around to look into the basement walk-out. This is what he saw:

And this is what we saw inside:

The water coming in through the door:

After the boxes were moved:

It most likely occurred do to poor drainage outside (there is a drain, and it was clogged) and the runoff from the neighboring lot as well. All the boxes that got wet were my parents belongings, luckily we think we caught it in time and there wasn't too much damage done. We were probably lucky we were home during the storm because had we been gone (which we almost were) we probably wouldn't have thought to go downstairs and check the basement at all and the water would've sat for who knows how long. (We rarely go down there).

As we were scrambling around I noticed Emmett had escaped the house and saw him tromping around in the rain puddles. He was getting soaked but I didn't have the heart to bring him inside. 

And this was Emmett tromping around in the basement as Mike was cleaning up. There's all sorts of treasures in the basement (I call it our "warehouse" as there's at least 3 families belongings down there so its cram-packed with boxes, furniture etc.) He's got an old ski pole and a bike helmet on. So, at least one of us had fun!